For millions of people who live in Texas, this week has seemed like hell. With the electrical grid collapsing, people were left to freeze to death in their living rooms while others watched their homes literally fall apart as frozen water pipes burst. But this is all simply a matter of perspective.
For electricity providers in Texas, this has been the best week ever. The same goes for natural gas companies. And coal companies. And drilling companies. And on down the line. The entire energy industry, including the owners of Texas wind farms, has seen a tremendous surge of profit. That surge was so great that on just two days this week, Monday and Tuesday, providers could easily have cleared more profit than they do in a full year of ordinary, full-scale production. Not providing adequate electricity to Texas is much more profitable than providing every Texan with the power they need. By design.
On Friday, as the electric grid begins to recover and people survey what’s left after days of no power, no water, and a governor who was so busy going on Fox News he didn’t have time to even distribute the stock of generators provided by FEMA, most of Texas is exhausted. But the energy industry is ecstatic. They’re coming down from a sugar rush that has sent an injection of billions straight into their pockets, and all they had to do to collect it was be bad at their supposed jobs.